Spirit Forge

Muir

Muir

Fighter
My premise here is simple. We need a better way for players to change their Build expenditures than Spirit Forge in its current form.

I assume that, like the last major rules change, existing characters will get a rewrite under the new rules. The playtest reports we've been seeing in the last couple days have indicated that classes play very, very differently under the new ruleset. It is, in my opinion, a poor belief for us to assume that everyone Alliance-wide is going to make perfect choices rebuilding their characters into the new system.

With that being the case, it follows that a catalyst-restricted and relatively rare ritual should not be the only way of fixing things if a few months of play reveal that the new character build chosen is not fun to play.

I've been of the opinion that this should be changed as a customer service matter for quite some time now, but with the new rules coming out this seems like a good and necessary change to ensure that the maximum number of players enjoy playing the game and continue to do so.

My suggestion:

Allow players to 'forget' a number of build worth of skills equal to their character level per event they attend, so long as the resulting character remains rules legal. Let this carry over between events to accommodate lower level characters wanting to drop expensive skills.

Combine this with removing the catalyst from the Spirit Forge ritual.

This results in a situation where players can slowly retrain characters and eventually reach a new build they are interested in, or expend in-game resources to do so immediately rather than waiting.

Thoughts? I can see a drawback in that it may extend a bit more time at check-in if commonly used, although that is already present when spending build at check-in, and I do not expect it to be an exceptional increase in time and effort.
 
While I like the idea in principle one of I see two hurdles

1.) Rewriting 10% of your build per game, plus the fluid class system could lead to more min max swapping (big casters make their perm items then reforge) - This is a minimal issue with the new MI system and if someone wants to reforge over a year, I'm for it.

2.) High level players tweaking build often - For example my own character would have the ability to drop/repick up weapon master and style master. So I could see power gamers optimizing their build (Ie just the one weapon set they feel like this event, flowing build into 30 extra COs for a couple events when poor etc.) - I think is a very minor concern.

Thoughts - Why not make this Change 5 build, or 10% which ever is more, and tie it to a 100 pp Potion/Alchemical recipe. Limit one per 5 day period?
 
We need more gold sinks in this game badly, what about tying it to costing gold directly somehow?
 
I can see tying it to gold or production, however I'd want to make the cost scalable so low level players who make a bad choice aren't out a significant part of their resources. Maybe a base number of build that can be enhanced via gold or production?

Frankle I prefer it being OOG because it is flatly a service to prevent customer service issues.
 
I've had a lot of thoughts about this because I'm not a huge fan of the current system.

I think a lesser spirit forge ritual, something that doesn't doesn't have a cat (I'm not really fan of cat rituals that force a character build to be the same but, that's a whole other bucket of worms), but let's you respend a portion of your build. Or forcing you to sell back skills so you maintain prereqs. (Ie I can unspend 10% build and respend it) Something that you could easily do but, is prohibitive enough to make spirit forge still useful.

Or let you sell back 1 single skill every event. You'd get a big bump from big skills like style master but, it'd be hard to change your class entirely with out spending a lot of time to do it. Which would certainly feel more natural. This let's people try out scholar with a shield for a bit. Then maybe they realize they don't like it, it's not the end of the world.
 
Lurin said:
2.) High level players tweaking build often - For example my own character would have the ability to drop/repick up weapon master and style master. So I could see power gamers optimizing their build (Ie just the one weapon set they feel like this event, flowing build into 30 extra COs for a couple events when poor etc.) - I think is a very minor concern.
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Regarding this specific point, one of the issues I've seen specifically over time on the West Coast is that, because Spirit Forge 'sets' are so controlled, they experience greedy hoarding and isolation within specific high-level groups. This removes their availability from the wider playerbase, or puts extra demand on plot teams to try to "ensure" that these pieces go elsewhere. If anything, this sort of move would (in hope, at least) remove a lot of that behavior.
 
Alkalin3 said:
I think a lesser spirit forge ritual, something that doesn't doesn't have a cat (I'm not really fan of cat rituals that force a character build to be the same but, that's a whole other bucket of worms), but let's you respend a portion of your build. Or forcing you to sell back skills so you maintain prereqs. (Ie I can unspend 10% build and respend it) Something that you could easily do but, is prohibitive enough to make spirit forge still useful.
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Similar to this, just change the spirit forge ritual to tier up. Have a few tiers that allow the removal of one to three skills, then have the full change as the top tier with catalyst. There's already precedent for having rituals work this way.

This means you could remove skills mid game, but you wouldn't be able to spend that build until after the game... unless you went whole hog with the catalyst. (Or immediately race changed.)
 
I like the idea of a lesser spirit forge ritual. I'm not sure that I like the idea of it being based on a % of build - I think I might more of a flat amount like 50 build.

Thoughts either way on what it would consist of? I'm not 100% against it being based on a percentage, but I feel like that cuts the value to lower level players
 
I dislike the tier idea because we have already seen for long enough how often tiered rituals get horded and considered 'wasted' if not used to maximum effect.

It still doesn't solve the low level problem either. How often do you see, in your chapters, a ritual scroll that is valuable and useful end up in the hands of and cast for a 'newbie'?

I can already play out the argument, just before the scroll quietly vanishes from the town mod loot pile: "It should go to Sir <high build character> because they gain build so slowly, that newbie can just fluid class into what they want with build instead of -wasting- a ritual scroll."
 
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You could easily make a spirit forge scroll with catalyst to do the same effects as now, and then a seperate scroll that is lesser spirit forge, not require a catalyst that allows for partial respects. That gets rid of the tier worry.
 
I feel that'd still negatively impact newer characters (and players) the most.

What if Teacher cards were expanded in use to allow for some form of experience re-expenditure?
 
Muir said:
I dislike the tier idea because we have already seen for long enough how often tiered rituals get horses and considered 'wasted' if not used to maximum effect.
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My thoughts exactly.

I much prefer the idea of having a greater/lesser ritual, since the intended uses are pretty different. ("I want a complete character rewrite" vs "oops, turns out I don't like using a shield"). A flat build amount would make the lesser ritual more like the greater one the lower one's level, which seems fine - a new player is more likely to want to feel around a bit for what works for them.
 
Saephis said:
What if Teacher cards were expanded in use to allow for some form of experience re-expenditure?
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If the Teacher has both the skill being unlearned and the skill being learned, they can teach their student to forget one skill in favor of the other?
 
I have my doubts there too, because it means hoarding lesser spirit forges and chain casting them is a valid strategy.

All in all, I still think this needs to be a completely OOG customer service mechanic that gets explained in game the same way as Goblin production does: "I do stuff the other three weeks of the month you know."
 
MondayMcGee said:
If the Teacher has both the skill being unlearned and the skill being learned, they can teach their student to forget one skill in favor of the other?
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If Teacher allowed either a skill to be taught OR a skill to be unlearned (See proverbs about the empty cup vs the full cup), it seems a fairly easy mechanic to track and maintain. And would probably increase Teacher use.
 
I would prefer a "Lesser Spirit Forge" mechanic not be a ritual. As a ritual it still potentially limits the availability and puts it out of reach of lower level players due to Treasure Policy requirements.

Personally, I would suggest a mechanic that allows you to unlearn 1 skill per Logistics period with a "tax" of something like 5 silver or 1 gold per XP of that skill. Whether that is incorporated into the Teacher skill or not makes no difference to me as long as it is much more easily accessible, yet with a reasonably controlled rate.
 
Cedric said:
We need more gold sinks in this game badly, what about tying it to costing gold directly somehow?
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While this may be true, those of us who ignore Gold and therefore don't have any stock piled (I think my character has maybe 10 gold), this would be overly punitive.

For the record, I utterly HATE the 'gear grind' and the 'gold hoarding' aspects of this game, and actively IGNORE and do NOT participate in those aspects. This is another reason why I really like the MI changes - I no longer feel obligated to look for this stuff for myself or my friends so that we can simply survive whatever is thrown at us. It will be nice to just not give a crap about it and not feel like I'm hosing my group.

I'm already on the fence about whether or not I'll keep playing in 2.0, and having to pay gold to adjust things that I screwed up because I didn't know better would push me further into "done with the game when 2.0 hits" territory. This viewpoint isn't a threat by any means (yarr, change rules or I go home), simply a statement of my current state of thinking/opinion.
 
I lean towards it having to be number of build based because of how much longer it would take to go from Scholar to Fighter than the reverse due to having to drop spell slots singleton.
 
Unlearning skills would make some sense folded into mental abilities, though the availability of biata and stone elves is occasionally also limited. It's also much more of, shall we say, a utility than most mental abilities tend to be, but it might be helpful to give them a utility.
 
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